So are you willing to give up quality of education for diversity?

[Anonymous]

Test scores give you an indication of how students are performing at a particular school. But they don’t tell you the whole story. They don’t tell you about individual student progress, they don’t tell you about the richness of the curriculum – whether there is art or music, or opportunities for individual or group exploration into a particular subject. And surveys of teachers in national research studies have shown that test preparation has contributed to the narrowing of school curricula.

Yeah your kid can pass a test - but that doesn't mean they're learning anything substantive beyond what's on those tests, which are often broken down to the bare minimum requirements so teachers and administrators can keep their jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It all depends on what you call quality of education. Lots of schools mainly have higher test scores because of lack of diversity but not because the school itself is so great.

This doesn't make any sense. Higher test scores are usually highly correlated with great schools. This is not to say schools with lower test scores don't have great things about them, but all things being equal, high test scores are a reliable arbiter of school quality.

No.
Higher test scores are usually highly correlated with higher SES not necessarily because the school is great. Move these people to another school, they would score the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. I want the highest rated schools. I do not care about diversity at all. When diversity stops meaning poor, dangerous, underperforming schools with a high number of ESL kids, I'll reconsider. Until then, my kids can experience diversity outside of school.

Only white folks think of diversity this way.

[Anonymous]

I prefer schools with lots of Asians since I am Asian. So yeah, I want diversity... but lots of Asians usually means the quality of education is high too.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't say I "chose" diversity, but I moved to a place I liked, discovered we really liked the school--which has kids from all over the world and no one majority ethnicity. I have plenty of money and I have had every opportunity to move my family across town to the school with the most white and Asian kids and the highest test scores, but I haven't done that because I don't see the point in giving up a great community and financial security and the benefits of knowing all different kinds of people. You might call this "sacrificing" my kids' education but I don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It all depends on what you call quality of education. Lots of schools mainly have higher test scores because of lack of diversity but not because the school itself is so great.

This doesn't make any sense. Higher test scores are usually highly correlated with great schools. This is not to say schools with lower test scores don't have great things about them, but all things being equal, high test scores are a reliable arbiter of school quality.

Uh no. People consider schools to be great if the test scores are high. Test scores are highly correlated with income level. o schools fun lof rich kids get high test scores. But that doesn't say anything about the quality of instruction or curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care about racial diversity but did choose to live in an area zoned for a HS with more economic diversity vs. one that has virtually no FARMs kids and skews to very high income. I went to that kind of nearly-all upper income HS and the culture was toxic -- all about appearances, materialism, bullying those who didn't fit the right look, lots of drug use, entitled kids and parents. I managed to isolate myself somewhat from all of it by being in a small honors program within the HS but it definitely gives a skewed perception of the real world.

My kids have been at schools for ES, MS and HS with 30-40% FARMs rates and I've been happy with the quality of the education at all the schools and the quality of the school culture. The schools happen to be racially diverse too but that wasn't the goal.

That would mean you have 30-40% of the kids having little to no parent involvement in the school. If you ask me that is more toxic. Statistically FARMS kids do not have the same parental involvement as others. That is a huge amount of FARMS. Parent involvement is what makes a school strong and high achieving.

I would guess that even at high SES schools at least 30-40% of parents have little too involvement at the school. DD attended an ES that was 45% FARMS. The school had great parent involvement, a very active PTA, lots of after school activities. I have friends who sent their kids to higher SES ES, and those friends didn't attend a single PTA meeting or ever volunteer in class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care about racial diversity but did choose to live in an area zoned for a HS with more economic diversity vs. one that has virtually no FARMs kids and skews to very high income. I went to that kind of nearly-all upper income HS and the culture was toxic -- all about appearances, materialism, bullying those who didn't fit the right look, lots of drug use, entitled kids and parents. I managed to isolate myself somewhat from all of it by being in a small honors program within the HS but it definitely gives a skewed perception of the real world.

My kids have been at schools for ES, MS and HS with 30-40% FARMs rates and I've been happy with the quality of the education at all the schools and the quality of the school culture. The schools happen to be racially diverse too but that wasn't the goal.

That would mean you have 30-40% of the kids having little to no parent involvement in the school. If you ask me that is more toxic. Statistically FARMS kids do not have the same parental involvement as others. That is a huge amount of FARMS. Parent involvement is what makes a school strong and high achieving.

I would guess that even at high SES schools at least 30-40% of parents have little too involvement at the school. DD attended an ES that was 45% FARMS. The school had great parent involvement, a very active PTA, lots of after school activities. I have friends who sent their kids to higher SES ES, and those friends didn't attend a single PTA meeting or ever volunteer in class.

PTA involvement is not the kind of parent involvement that makes a difference.
The kind of parental involvement that makes a difference is parents who make sure their kids get their homework done and assist them with it, hire tutors, enroll their kids in extra curriculars, sweat the college admissions process, and so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll bite.
We actually choose a lower rated school (according to great schools) b/c we wanted immersion. When I reviewed the stats for a child in my DS's demographic, he was just as likely to well at the school we enrolled him in as in the other more highly rated school.

I don't think I am sacrificing anything and he is gaining the ability to speak a second language which he could not get at home.

I am not sure what thread you are referencing but I am sure there are parents who would rather their child be in a lower rated school than being the "only" diverse child in their classroom.

Also remember the lower rating does not always mean a lower level of instruction. It simply means there are more kid struggling academically which reflects in the test scores and school rating. As long as there is differentiation it is likely that a smart child in a lower rated school really isn't missing much from an education perspective and that a struggling child probably has acces to more resources.

NP - We also chose a lower rated school b/c we wanted immersion. DC1 did fine at that school, but after a few years we recognized that the quality of education was a significantly lower level of instruction. It doesn't really matter too much for him because he's a self directed learner and on the high achieving end of the scale so we could make a lot up by supplementing at home but when it came time to decide on a school for DC2 we went with the better quality of education. DC1 will be swapping over to the other school next fall and while I'm sad to be losing the immersion it's not worth it to stay in a school where the teachers have a hard time teaching the basics in English. We went in with high hopes but were forced to recognize that when the school administration is mainly focused on just getting their students to show up to class the level of instruction is going to suffer. Differentiation was promised, but rarely happened and my child asking "why are the brown kids always causing trouble?" was NOT what I was hoping for when it came to learning about how to deal with diverse populations.

[Anonymous]

Diverse doesn't necessarily mean low quality.

[Anonymous]

I'm a teacher and the only way I would choose a more diverse school for my child is if it is a magnet school. My DS went to a magnet school for ES. It was more diverse racially and SES wise. It had the same test scores as the higher SES schools in our county. Why? It has motivated parents. Parents had to provide their own transportation to school except for students zoned for a few schools nearby the magnet school. Those students were bused from those close by schools to the magnet. If parents are willing to drive their kids all over the county to get to school, there is a lot more motivation there than at a magnet school where nobody has to provide transportation. I work in a Title One school and we have great teachers here but the average student is much lower in terms of reading level than the average elsewhere. So the only way my kid would come to my school is if he was low average. That is who gets most of our time here because there are so many students in that category.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It all depends on what you call quality of education. Lots of schools mainly have higher test scores because of lack of diversity but not because the school itself is so great.

This doesn't make any sense. Higher test scores are usually highly correlated with great schools. This is not to say schools with lower test scores don't have great things about them, but all things being equal, high test scores are a reliable arbiter of school quality.

Uh no. People consider schools to be great if the test scores are high. Test scores are highly correlated with income level. o schools fun lof rich kids get high test scores. But that doesn't say anything about the quality of instruction or curriculum.

Absolutely true. High test scores are correlated with high SES.

[Anonymous]

We did. Kind of. We are typical liberal white upper middle class parents. We picked a school that is "just diverse enough". We picked a N. Arlington elementary that is about 20-25% FARMS, but still in N Arlington.
We could have a nicer house in S. Arlington or "better" schools in FCC, Arlington or McLean depending on what you consider better.

[Anonymous]

We are high SES in a diverse school. Medium amount of FARMS. My kids are usually the best and the brightest. We ca afford tutoring if needed.

Something to be said for being the biggest fish in a smaller pond instead of a middling fish in a big pond.

[Anonymous]

We picked both -- diverse school and well regarded. No its not a W or North Arlington school - but we couldn't afford that anyway.